Guitar Hero

Gamers familiar with Konami's Bemani series of games knows that there's so much more beyond Dance Dance Revolution. The company has produced a number of addictive rhythm games, some having players dancing to a manic beat, others by having them hammer on plastic instruments. The most popular of the latter variety is Guitar Freaks, which has a player wear a guitar strapped to his or her torso, pressing three buttons on the neck one hand while hammering on a paddle where the other hand would be wailing on the strings of a real guitar. Sadly, with the success that Dance Dance Revolution has seen on consoles in North America, none of the other Bemani games, Guitar Freaks most bemoanedly so, have made the trans-Pacific journey.

Guitar Freaks freaks, sate your hunger.

Enter Guitar Hero, the next in a line of rhythm games from developer Harmonix Music - the company that brought you Frequency and Amplitude - and publisher RedOctane, who stepped into the rhythm-stepping genre with In The Groove earlier this year. The basic game mechanics are the same - press fret buttons on the neck of the 'guitar' and strum a paddle on the body to correspond with visual cues on the screen. Use the whammy bar to modulate long notes, and tilt the guitar upright for a bonus effect. OK, nothing new here.

Except that little things mean a lot. First of all, the game ramps up both the difficulty and the authenticity of the guitar-playing mechanic by having five buttons on the neck instead of three. With three buttons, playing Guitar Freaks felt as much like playing a real guitar as... well, as playing Dance Dance Revolution feels like real dancing (go to your local nightclub, head out to the dance floor, and do the steps for Butterfly - see how long it takes you to get thrown out). By adding the fourth and fifth buttons, making players move their hands and use their pinkies (at higher difficulty levels) to play all the notes, Guitar Hero takes a step away from 'playing a rhythm game' and towards 'playing a musical instrument'.

Secondly, the presentation of Guitar Freaks is exactly like that of Dance Dance Revolution - you pick a song from a long list of songs, and go to town. In Guitar Hero, though, you're given a way to measure your progress - you name your band, choose your axe-wielding avatar, and start playing in someone's basement. Further success leads to a nightclub, a tour, and ultimately... "The Garden". On your way, you'll be given a select list of songs to play... in the basement, you'll only have access to a short repertoire of the easiest songs in the game (thankfully, "Smoke On The Water" is on that list... you'll want to scratch that itch right away). As you progress, you'll be given harder and more complex riffs to play. In this way, the game eases you through its learning curve - you'll be surprised how quick you become confident with that pinky.

Thirdly, Guitar Hero's atmosphere just speaks to rockers. From the antics on stage (playing the guitar behind the head, setting fire to the guitar at the end of a set) to the secondary parts of the game (guitarist advice during the loading screens, amps that go to 11, high-score lists on bathroom walls), everything about the feel of this game fits perfectly. If the developers of this game don't just love hard rock, they fake it very well, and talked to a lot of people who do.

It stands to mention that the main list of 30 tracks the game advertises are covers, but extraordinarily well done ones. With a few exceptions (go ahead, just try to sing like Freddy Mercury... convincingly), all of the primary songs are played and sung nearly identically to how they were made famous. In addition, the game also includes 18 unlockable songs by lesser-known artists, as well as a host of other unlockables, like a number of Gibson guitars, skins, and playable characters, including "Grim Ripper". Yeah. That's right. Nothing beats playing "Symphony of Destruction" as Death himself, thrashing on his scythe-guitar.

All of this material will be highly appreciated by true fans of hard rock music, if not by others. If none of the above sounds appealing to you, then this game just isn't for you. Sure, the idea of a guitar-based rhythm game might be fun, but a $70 price point should quell any thoughts of it being a worthwhile buy. But if you know that you should never give a drummer a microphone, if you know why you should never eat anything thrown onstage, if you know a crowd is just heckling you if they're yelling for you to play "Freebird", and, especially, if you know that 11 IS louder than 10... this game is priceless.